Autumn walks weekend: Calf Top from Barbon, Saturday 10th September 2022

Leader: Dave Miller

Reporter: Steve Wardle

Fourteen Club members along with the usual four dogs met in the field which extends the Barbon Inn car park at 9.45am as planned. The forecast was for excellent walking weather (not too hot and no rain) and, thankfully, it was almost spot on.

The walk had been recced earlier in the year and after a brief discussion Dave decided to reverse the published route and walk it clockwise. This would allow a couple of members who wanted a short walk to stay low and near the valley paths which would take them back to the start. It would also get the more difficult ground — a narrow, sometimes indistinct path on a contour crossed by small streams — behind us while walkers were still fresh.

We left Barbon by the lane next to the church and headed across the low pasture. Unfortunately one of the group started feeling some muscle pain within a kilometre of the start and thought it best to return to the Inn.

For the remainder we headed north until we reached Millhouse Gill which marked the end of the trickier section and as this was at almost a third of the walk distance and we'd been moving for an hour and a half we stopped here for a quick snack.

This was also the point where the other “reduced distance” walker who was running-in a nearly new (one month old) knee would leave us and head back to Barbon. It should be noted that although the path by Mill House near the gill looks like an obvious link from the nearby public footpaths to the open access land we were walking on it is NOT a right of way and is blocked by locked gates.

After the break we crossed the Gill and set off on the main ascent, 450m of steady climbing on a good track eastwards to Calf Top. We had good views when we reached the trig point but it was bit breezy so after a few photographs we headed SW by the dry stone wall dropping about 40m off the top. Here the wall turned SE and provided a windbreak and backrest where we could sit and look out towards the coast so we decided to stop for lunch.

As we set off after our break we saw some patchy rain showers behind us but luckily they didn't shift in our direction.

The next section of the walk was a gentle down then up past Castle Knot before the final descent back into Barbon via Eskholme Pike. We made good time on this last part of the walk and were surprised to reach the Church Mouse cafe in time for tea and cakes before it closed at 4pm.

Thanks to Dave for organising this and the Sunday walk and also the meals at the Barbon Inn.